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Friday, February 3, 2012

{My Parties} Leap Year Party Styled Shoot

I have always thought it would be really awesome to have a birthday on Leap Year! A birthday only every 4 years? Well, that appeals to some people's vanity! But, when you're a kid, it would probably be a bummer!

My oldest could have been a leap year baby. He was born in 2008, and he made it to March 13th, but it was definitely a possibility! And, here were are, 4 years later and it's another leap year!

I loved working with Lauren, the editor or Baby Lifestyles, she is super witty and fun and really understood my sense of humor, which I always appreciate. I was honored to put together this fun shoot, inspired by Leap Year babies, and what else? Frogs.

Because I am a mom
to boys, who love slimy and gross things, I thought a frog party would be right
up their alley. I asked the lovely Paulaat Frog Prince Paperie to help me with the printables. Who better, right? She
was so gracious in modifying one of her existing collections to fit my party
theme.

I started with a
monochromatic green color palette. I used these oversized flowers as a backdrop
because they reminded me of lilypads. In addition, I found these green votives
that also had the same look. For the
front of the table, I simple used chipboard letters and some glittered
scrapbook letters to spell the word “leap.”

I love the idea of having all green food and drink and I knew boys would love that too. Since my son is abig fan of pistachios, I knew I had to incoporate that somehow. So, pistachio pudding, or “Lilypad Pudding” was the perfect fit! I garnished the pudding with these small frog candy melts that I made using a mold from Wilton

Another addition to the dessert table was chocolate and mint marshmallows. I found this great miniature dessert fork display at Hobby Lobby and knew it would be cute for kids. Kids love things that are individualized. It makes them feel special! I wrapped each fork with a pipe cleaner to give it an little extra color. Green olives would also be a cute touch on these little forks. I also added some Coconut M&Ms to the table, calling them “Frog Eggs.”

Paula made these great drink wraps for me, which I used with green sparkling juice. I added some glittery scrapbbook paper behind them to make them look extra special.

To send the boys home with something fun, the favors were frog slap bracelets that I found at the dollar spot at Target. Boys love slap bracelets, so this was really serendpitous. I tied each one with a favor tag from Frog Prince Paperie.

Hope this inspires you to have a party for the holiday that you can only celebrate once every four years!

23 comments:

This is such a fun and festive idea! I am Raenell Dawn, cofounder of The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies. We're an internet birthday club of about 10,000 so far. We often get asked about party favors for Leap Day babies. This is a great start in that direction. We seem to find lots of frog themed party packages, but they don't mention Leap Year or Leap Day or the Leap Day Baby. People may celebrate Leap Year all year long with Leap Year parties. The Leap Day baby has that one day, Leap Day. Thanks for helping give Mom's of Leap Day babies some great ideas!

I Leap, therefore I am,Raenell Dawn,The Leap Day Lady atwww.leapyearday.comAnyone can be born in a Leap Year, we were born on Leap Year Day! :~D

Where was this party idea six months ago? I had the hardest time finding anything frog related for my son's first birthday party. he's my little Frog Prince. if you google "frog prince" all you get is "Princess and the Frog" stuff that is all about the princess. this would have saved me TONS of work.

My Dad will be celebrating his 19th birthday this year, so he will be 76 years old;o). I actually found a Leap Day birthday card at Walmart. They only had the one, but I have never seen one before. Love your party theme. I am having a Leap Day frog themed party at the elementary school & your ideas are just great!